The 80s and 90s

By the early 1980s, there were growing signs that Canadian
public opinion was at long last coming around to the realization that the
armed forces had been cut to the bone and in some cases, beyond. Both Liberals
and Conservatives promised modest increases in the armed forces in the 1979
election ,and public discontent over the failure of the Liberals to live up
to the commitment played a not insignificant role in the landslide victory
of Brian Mulroney's Conservatives in 1984. Commanding officers of the LER
who had suffered in silence for years at last began to speak out. When Lieutenant-Colonel
C.G. Marshall took over in February of 1982, he made a very frank statement
about DND policies. Numbers had recovered to about ninety all ranks by that
time, and the authorized strength had been moved up from 154 to 266, but that
was not the whole story. "While on the one hand they tell us our authorized
strength is 266, they tell us on the other hand that there is a 'paid ceiling'
which is considerably lower and that we are over strength." (35)
Numbers continued to creep up, however, and, in 1983, it was possible to reclaim
the band, which had been forced to combine with the Air Reserve band to survive.
By 1986, the band was back up to full strength once again, with new uniforms
purchased by donations.

The LER continued jump training with the Airborne and
got a chance to demonstrate their skills in an international Combat Security
Team competition organized by the United States Air Force in 1985. In spite
of the fact that it was one of the few non-regular force groups entered, the
LER placed fifteenth of thirty-five teams in 1985 and eighth of thirty-three
teams in 1986. (36) Training exercises in this period took
members of the LER from as far south as Texas and New Mexico to Gjoa Haven
in the far north. The Mulroney government might have promised major increases
in defence spending, but it took its time putting the talk into action. Not
until 1987 did Defence Minister Perrin Beatty produce the government's new
plan for the armed forces, Challenge and Commitment. It promised an expansion
of the reserves from 18,000 to 40,000 as well as new equipment. For the LER,
this meant an increase in authorized strength from 140 to 160. In 1987, the
regiment got its first new equipment in many years with the issue of new pattern
uniforms and the C-6 machine gun. (37) Another sign of change
was the assignment of two soldiers from the regiment to the Canadian peacekeeping
force in Cyprus.

City of Edmonton Archives, Loyal Edmonton Regiment Collection.

General Griesbach's sword, n.d.

The City of Edmonton presented General Griesbach with this ceremonial sword in 1919 to mark his distinguished service in World War I. Stolen from its display case in City Hall in 1983, the sword was soon recovered and became one of the many regimental now preserved in The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum.

In the early
1980s, several events led the Forty-Ninth Battalion, The Loyal Edmonton
Regiment Association to begin to work actively for the creation of a museum.
The 'Last Post' section of The Forty-Niner was starting to fill
up with obituaries of those who had served with the LER in the Second
World War. In a bizarre episode in 1983, General Griesbach's sword, which
had been on display in city hall, was stolen. The sword was quickly recovered,
but it had been damaged and needed to be sent to England for repair. The
numerous other objects associated with the regiment's history were in even more
precarious circumstances; a flood at Griesbach Barracks in the summer of 1982
had threatened to destroy irreplaceable items. About this same time the city
acquired control of the Prince of Wales Armoury building. It was designated
a historic site by the provincial government, which brought an end to talk of
demolishing it for commercial or residential development. Just what to use the
building for was a matter of extensive public discussion but it seemed obvious
to the Association that this would be an ideal location for a regimental museum.

City of Edmonton Archives, Loyal Edmonton Regiment Collection.

Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum

Once the provincial government designated the Prince of Wales Armoury building as a historic site, it seemed a likely place to develop a regimental museum. After several years of fund-raising and restoration work, The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum opened its doors in 1996.

A Museum Foundation was incorporated in 1986 under the chairmanship of
CWO Chris Atkin, who had been actively working on the idea for several
years and who might well have thought twice about taking on the job had
he known how long it would take. (38) The society began
fund-raising, undertook negotiations with the city about use of the space
(it was not as immediately obvious to all city officials that the regimental
museum should be located there), and sought advice from the Provincial
Museum about how best to organize and display the items in its possession.
The society also began a very successful drive to collect more objects associated
with the regiment's history. In 1991, five years after negotiations began, an
agreement was reached with the city that provided 2400 square feet of display
space as well as some basement storage in the refurbished building.

Once the space was secured, all that was needed was money for
renovating it into a museum. While there were donations and members of the
Association worked casinos, it was never enough. Volunteer construction labour
helped make up the difference, and additional assistance came from the city
in the form of an agreement to waive rent on the space in 1995. (39)
In December of 1996, Chris Atkin was able to report that the museum was open.
There was still a great deal of work to do to bring the museum up to its final
form and a flood in the basement storage area in 1998 damaged some items,
but the project had provided a permanent home at last for the collective memory
of the regiment.

As the work on the museum was getting under way, the regiment
celebrated its 75th anniversary during the May long weekend in 1990. There
was a church parade and a picnic at Camp Harris. The highlight of the anniversary
was a parade of the colours and inspection by the honourary Colonel-in-Chief
of the PPCLI, Lady Patricia Brabourne, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. For
some veterans, the participation of Colonel Jim Stone and three original Forty-Niners
was even more significant, and they did not hesitate to say so. Resentment
at the submergence of the identity of the LER as part of the PPCLI had been
present for more than thirty years, but this was the first time it came out
in public. (40)

Department of National Defence (Photo by Sgt Frank Hudec)

Bison Armoured Vehicle, 2003

Beginning in 1991, LER troops were trained with the new Bison armoured vehicle. A Bison is seen here with a CC-130 Hercules transport aircraft at Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, in July 2003.

The modest flow of new money for
the militia in the late 1980s brought with it not only modernized equipment
and more intense training but also heavier responsibilities for the 1990s.
The steady erosion of the regular force meant that militia units like
the LER would have to be trained to a level which would allow their soldiers
to reinforce regular units on short notice. Canada's heavy peacekeeping
commitments in the last decade of the twentieth century could not have
been met without the participation of the reserves. Thus the LER was re-equipped
with the C-7 rifle and the C-9 light machine gun in 1991. Jump training that
year included a trip to Reno in May for a group of twenty soldiers who participated
in a joint exercise with American forces. At Wainwright, training was carried
out on the new Bison light armoured vehicle. (41)

The world was changing very rapidly in the early 1990s, and
a complex combination of events brought a changed role, but no lighter responsibilities,
for the LER. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 seemed to reduce the
need for armed force everywhere, and there was widespread talk of a 'peace
dividend.' This quickly proved to be an illusion as the end of the cold war
created power vacuums that led to fierce regional conflicts in Africa, the
Middle East, and the Balkans. Canada's participation in the Gulf War, mainly
naval and air elements, cost the country close to $700 million. That unexpected
expense at a time of economic difficulty led the government of Brian Mulroney
to reverse its program of increased military spending. The regular forces
were cut from 82,000 to 76,000, mostly by eliminating Canada's NATO force
in Europe and pulling our peacekeepers out of Cyprus. The ceiling on reserves
dropped from 40,000 to 30,000.

Training and morale suffered, a fact that became all too evident
with the disastrous deployment of the Airborne Regiment in Somalia. The highly
publicized death of a Somali teenager at the hands of Canadian soldiers led
directly to the end of the twelve-year association between the LER and the
Airborne, even before it was disbanded in 1995. (42) Jump
training was no longer part of the LER's task, and the unit would now prepare
itself for a reconnaissance role. Money was once again critically short. The
new Liberal government came to office in 1993 with control of spending as
its major priority and without even the Mulroney government's theoretical
commitment to a stronger military. The regular forces were reduced further
to 60,000 and for the militia, funding for parade days and ammunition was
severely restricted.

Department of National Defence (Photo: MCpl Paul MacGregor)

Bison Armoured Vehicle, 2003

In 2002, soldiers from the LER served with the PPCLI and Lord Strathcona's Horse in Croatia. Here a Coyote reconnaissance armoured vehicle of the Lord Strathcona's Horse passes through the city of Kljuc, Bosnia-Herzegovina, while conducting reconnaissance and patrol duties for the PPCLI Battle Group. Although Canada's role in Croatia was called "peacekeeping", in many cases it was closer to a combat situation.

The breakup of the former state
of Yugoslavia resulted in murderous fighting and 'ethnic cleansing' among
the various groups that made up its population. The United Nations intervened,
and Canada contributed first one, then two battalions to the peacekeeping
force. The LER was well represented from the beginning. Twenty volunteers
from the regiment went out with the first rotation, 10 with the second,
and 23 with the third. (43) Although it was called peacekeeping,
in many cases it was closer to a combat situation. In September of 1993,
2PPCLI became involved in a week-long fire fight with Croatian troops
in the Medak Pocket. Because Canada was in the middle of an election campaign,
the public did not hear about the battle until many months later. Soldiers
from the LER continue to serve with the PPCLI and Lord Strathcona's Horse
in Croatia.

Part of the downsizing of the armed forces in the early
1990s involved the closure of a number of bases across the country. One result
was that many of the army operations in western Canada were consolidated at
Edmonton. This put increased pressure on the already overcrowded facilities
at Griesbach and made a new home for the regiment an urgent necessity. With
the federal deficit under control, Ottawa was more inclined to listen to requests.
Negotiations spearheaded by Honourary Colonel Bob Chapman were successful
and led to the opening of the splendid new James Curry Jefferson building
in 2001. The LER had once again made it through hard and uncertain times and
could look forward to active participation in the defence of Canada in the
new century.